


Breathe

by autiotalo (orphan_account)



Category: Die Ärzte
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-28
Updated: 2010-09-28
Packaged: 2017-10-12 06:26:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/121889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/autiotalo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a marathon, Bela needs to breathe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathe

Bela wonders what it is that people think about during a marathon. As he passes, or is passed, by the other runners in this race of endurance, he sneakily steals a glance at their faces. Not a pretty sight: but then, nobody looks their best when they're tense with effort, red-faced with exertion, too tired to care about the way their hair draggles against their forehead.

Some of them look focused. Some of them look angry. Bela wonders at the strength of negative emotion that must be expended to push each individual's will forwards, onwards, through the heat and the incline of the mountain roads.

He supposes that some people do this to test themselves. Does he? Bela ponders this for the next few miles. He knows that not everything he does in life is because he enjoys it, but he thinks that he enjoys running, even though it hurts. It's a kind of freedom, and not a test. In it, he can find answers to questions he didn't even know he was asking.

Bela supposes he should think about sex; but he can't. There is an obvious correlation between running and fucking, but he's found that the two activities have a much closer affinity than he expected – or at least in his head.

Another mile on, and he finds that he can't hold his train of thought any longer. Images and ideas flitter towards him, but as soon as he tries to grasp them, they flee. He settles into the space of not-thinking, and finds it to be very comfortable.

He wonders if Rod feels like this when he goes diving; if his mind freefalls into clarity: buoyant, like water.

He wonders if Farin feels like this when he ups and leaves; when he takes his motorbike and hurls himself and the machine through endless landscapes, captured but not noticed.

Mountains. Sky. Road.

Bela finds now that he cannot notice the landscape, either. He can recognise it, knowing instinctively what it is that he sees; but as a generic whole, it has become impossible. What were once pastures have now shrunk down to an awareness of a single tuft of grass growing beside the road. The walls of scree he'd admired before are now reduced to tiny tumbles of gravel scuffed across the asphalt ahead of him.

Mountains. Sky. Road.

Thought has retreated, sits coiled in the haven of his mind, waiting for his body to finish. The primal part of his brain urges him onwards. He is animal now, and recognises only what an animal would notice: the shape of the road beneath his feet, the jolt of impact through his body; the sweat that stings his eyes and makes his vision blurred. He registers on some base level the reality of his body: the tense and stretch of muscle, the acceleration of his heartbeat, the prick of heat on his skin and the wash of warm sweat that coats his sides, his flanks.

Mountains. Sky. Road.

Bela is supremely aware of his own space: he knows when a rival approaches, knows when to speed up or slow down. He is jealous of the place he's running in, and guards it well, lets it slip deeper in to become a part of him.

Not even the drugs made him feel like this.

He tries to match the rhythm of his feet striking the road to the beating of his heart. It is impossible to breathe to time, too. Whenever he tries to count each breath, he stumbles, and his heart leaps in complaint. He hates being out of time, and so he forces a harder rhythm until he comes back into alignment.

Sky. Road.

Bela feels, from a long way away, the burning ache of muscle and the hoarse scratch of breath in his throat. The discomfort is but a tickle on the periphery of his inward vision. Each step, each breath, eases him into this long, drawn-out state that resonates through his skull, through his body, ringing around and around like the pure clear note that will shatter glass.

Road.

And then there is nothing at all in his mind. He races into oblivion; single-minded intensity diminished to a point as fine as a needle, running towards an end that may also be a beginning.

The finishing line.

The road continuing past the finishing line.

Farin.

 _Farin?_

Bela doubles over, gasping. An official tosses a blanket over him. He can taste blood threatening at the back of his throat, and so he spits on the ground. His entire body aches. When he straightens up, his face is red. He knows Farin is looking at him, and he feels a flash of embarrassment that he's so dishevelled and hot and sweaty. Farin, of course, is sleek and neat and beautiful, softly amused as he admires Bela.

"Bastard," says Bela when he can catch his breath. He wants to speak before Farin does. "You never said you would be here."

Farin looks pleased with himself, as he if he had just run a marathon, won it, and beaten the world record. "Surprise."

Bela shoves him aside and goes to collect his time. It doesn't really matter; it's enough that he finished it, but still he wants it. Farin follows him, as silent as temptation. He takes the time from Bela and smiles approvingly, and some of Bela's knotted tension dissipates.

It is only a few steps to the hotel, and by then Bela's thoughts are beginning to unfurl. He can feel pain again: a nagging ache in his calves, a dull fire in his thighs, and worst of all, a tight, crushing band around his chest, constricting his lungs, making him work to draw breath. If he had air enough, he would complain of his hurts to Farin – but he doubts that Farin would listen. At times, Farin likes him to be helpless and tender. The thought makes Bela feel weaker still.

He can barely find the strength to pat at the button to call the lift; and when the doors open, he stumbles inside and rests his forehead against the cold metal wall in front of him. He drops the blanket to get closer to the chill. It feels good; and so he moves his head, letting cold steel touch hot flesh until it's so exquisite that he puts his lips to the wall. It's almost a kiss: a layering of breath that mists the silvery surface of the metal. Bela tastes the gloss of the steel, draws the cold back into his lungs, hoping that it will calm his racing heart.

Farin licks the back of his neck.

Bela jerks away from the embrace of the metal. His heart stops for a split-second, and then beats faster than before. He needs more air. Bela puts his hands on the steel wall, palms flat to the metal, and he whimpers, oh-so-softly, when Farin mouths at his nape again, greedily.

Bela feels the drop into sensuality. He has never been able to be sensible as far as Farin is concerned. The pain of the marathon transmutes into lust, desperate and endorphin-enhanced, an impossible lure to resist.

He turns around, careless of the sweat on his back that streaks the walls of the lift like bloodstains, hot and fresh.

Farin stands in front of him, crowds into his space: steals his air.

Bela backs away, even though he doesn't want to, and finds himself cornered. He flails at Farin, tries to push him aside. It doesn't work. Farin is determined: slides his arms around Bela and feels the shudder of his ribs through sweat-soaked cotton.

"Don't -"

Bela's protest is cut short, dissolved into a kiss. He stands there with his eyes open, acutely aware of the horrible taste of his mouth, the dry metallic rasp of exertion, and he tries to draw back. He doesn't want Farin to taste him like this.

Farin ignores his wriggles of escape, too intent on the kiss. He makes a tiny sound of contentment, an exhalation of happiness from the back of his throat. He makes the same noise every time they kiss, even if they're about to fuck in anger, and Bela is reassured and aroused by the familiarity, by Farin's simple enjoyment of him.

Still, he breaks the kiss and leans into Farin's chest, breathing down, breathing in – black cotton and washing-powder and cologne and Farin's skin – and he says, self-consciously, "I stink."

"It's sexy." Farin traps him again; nibbles at his hair, his ear, and then down the side of his neck.

Bela can feel the sopping-wet trim of his t-shirt suddenly restrictive across his collarbones. He can't bear the idea of Farin kissing him there. The base of his throat is too sensitive, rubbed raw from the chafe of cotton against bare skin. He tries to distract Farin, but knows he cannot: when he feels Farin's tongue lick across the sweat-slicked flesh, he gasps and tilts back his head in surrender.

It feels so good that he can't breathe. "Ah – you! – fucking pervert -"

Farin laughs, a delicious spiral of sound. "Yes."

For all the agonising fire that burns the muscles in his thighs, Bela still feels the delicate touch of Farin's fingers. He feels the damp, flabby drape of his shorts and the tightness of desire, the awareness of that cool, knowing touch sliding upwards. Bela wants the world to stop so they can fall out of time, so he can catch his breath.

The lift doors open, and Farin takes Bela by the hand and leads him to a room. Bela thinks that it's his room, but is beyond caring. His breath still comes in short little gasps, part exhaustion, part excitement. His chest scarcely moves, so shallow is his breathing. Thought has retreated again, and in its place is the animal, cautious, fractious, as it goes into rut.

Farin pulls him over to the bed, giggling now that he has Bela where he wanted him. He whispers silly things, affectionate things, but Bela cannot hear them above the pounding of his heart. Farin noses into his hair; licking his neck again as he strips Bela of his clothes. The cloth is cold and damp now, the warmth of the sweat reduced to a chill even on his naked skin. Bela shivers in Farin's arms and tries to imagine what it tastes like - if the fresh sweat overlays the bitterness of the old.

Farin touches him, and he breathes again. Desperate, longing: he breathes in each caress, lets Farin's clever, clever hands take him up, take him higher, into the resonance of blood in his ears and the pulse in his chest, his cock.

His heart hammers: too fast, too loud. It swarms the blood, robbing him of sensation in his fingers, his toes. Tiny sprinkles of cold lick at him: the myriad prickle of pins and needles. He can feel Farin with every inch of his skin and through the red-raw flesh of heart. It almost hurts: his body bruised, skin crushed with exertion, crumpling beneath Farin's weight and driven back into the soft, white sheets. His chest constricts, flattened by emotion; his body screams towards an oblivion he cannot ever hope to put into words.

He thinks he's going to die.

"I can't breathe. Jan! I can't -"

He can.

He does.

Bela breathes: loud, staccato gasps that almost make him hyperventilate.

Beside him, twined quietly around him, Farin's breathing is slow and natural. Bela tries for calm and fails. Instead he holds Farin and claws handfuls of his hair, dry and fine as winter sunlight, and lets Farin adore him. Eventually, everything comes back into its proper alignment, and Bela can breathe easily again.


End file.
